


Not This Time, Mr. Spock

by twisting_vine_x



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, M/M, Remembered torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twisting_vine_x/pseuds/twisting_vine_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda for 'The Empath', which features aliens who torture their victims to death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not This Time, Mr. Spock

Leonard curled onto his side and wrapped himself in a blanket, the material soft against his aching skin. His brush with death had left him more shaken than he cared to admit, and he needed to hide away from the world for a bit, until he felt like he wasn’t going to fly apart.

The aliens had been ruthless. They had wrecked his body with the casual determination a human would use to squash a bug. His heart, liver, spleen, kidney, lungs – everything destroyed by the simple press of a button, while he hung in chains, helpless to defend himself.

Leonard knew he was going to be having nightmares for a long time.

The sheer physical pain of what had happened – the shutdown of every important body function, all at the same time – Remembering the feel of fire racing along his skin, curling through his insides and drawing screams he’d been helpless to silence, Leonard wrapped the blanket tighter around him, trying to hide from the memories. He was shaking now, sweat dripping along his skin, body aching with remembered agony –

He barely heard the hiss of his door opening, followed by soft footsteps as someone entered the room. Leonard slammed his eyes shut and pretended to be asleep, uncurling his fingers from their death grip on the blanket. He didn’t have the strength to deal with this right now – having drugged both Jim and Spock, and taken their place for the laboratory experiment, he knew they were furious.

The footsteps stopped beside his bed, and he kept his eyes shut, trying to even his breathing, pretending that none of this was happening.

“Bones.”

Jim’s pained whisper scraped across his nerves like sandpaper, and Leonard consciously stopped a flinch, silently pleading with him to go away. If he could just have some time to process, to figure out how he was going to cope with what had happened, to somehow shove the memory of that agony from his mind –

“Your attempt to feign sleep is hardly believable, doctor.”

Spock’s voice held the tiniest hint of accusation, and Leonard opened his eyes, knowing it was futile to keep pretending. He blinked up at them, and pulled the blanket closer around himself, remembering the furious tightness of Jim’s hand against his arm when they beamed aboard.

“Can’t we do this later?” His voice was a rough rasp, and he cleared his throat, wishing he didn’t sound like he’d been chewing on rocks. “I’m not –”

He bit off his words as Jim sat down on the bed, prying one of Leonard hands free from the blanket, and holding it in his own, gently sliding their fingers together. Those brown eyes were swimming with pain, and Leonard stared at him, his heart aching horribly.

"Bones, why?"

Jim should have already known the answer, but Leonard could hear the pain in his voice, and he tightened his grip on Jim's hand.

“You think I was going to let either of you die?” His voice was strained with almost-panic, and he flinched as anger flashed through Jim’s eyes. “You both tried to do the same thing. You have no right to be this angry.”

Jim said nothing, but his lips thinned, and he tightened his grip on Leonard’s hand. Spock was standing perfectly still, body radiating with barely contained anger, and Leonard closed his eyes again, hoping they would take the hint and leave him alone.

“Would you please just go?”

His voice sounded wrecked to his own ears, and all he could remember was the pain of his body shattering. Leonard pulled the blanket even tighter around him, trying to pretend that everything was going to be alright, blocking Jim's betrayed expression from his mind –

His blanket disappeared as the bed dipped down behind him, and strong arms suddenly wrapped around him, pulling him snug against an inhumanly warm body. Spock’s nose was buried in his hair, clever fingers trailing across his arms, and Leonard fought down a stupid prickling of tears, unable to stop himself from melting into the comfort of Spock’s embrace.

“Spock,” he whispered, then gave up, his voice stranged by Spock's obvious unease. Leonard couldn't regret that he had done this to them - it had saved their lives - but he hated that he had scared them this much. 

“Our concern is quite justified,” Spock whispered harshly, lips brushing against the side of his neck. “How would you react if one of us had been dying on that table?”

His throat closing at the roughness in Spock’s voice, Leonard clutched at his arms, fingers digging into soft fabric. Without saying a word, Jim lied down against his front, and brushed a hand against Bones cheek, trailing wetness along his skin.

“We love you, Bones. We don’t want to lose you.”

The simple truth was boggling, and Leonard didn’t know how to respond. His mind raced back to the laboratory, remembering the cool efficiency with which Spock had used second-in-command privilege to select himself as the experiment victim, insisting that Leonard remind alive –

“I didn’t want to lose you, either.”

His voice was too loud in the silent room, and his heart was screaming that this was too much to deal with. They had spent several years drifting through the darkness of space, but he had never reconciled the idea of losing either of these men, and the thought left a gaping hole in his heart.

There was a long moment of pained silence, before both bodies moved closer, snuggling tightly against him, and Leonard’s heart did something ridiculous. With strong arms wrapped around him from both sides, he felt safe for the first time since they had beamed down to the planet, but his skin was still aching with remembered pain, and his heart was beating much too fast.

“I’m not sorry,” he whispered, knowing it was far from what they wanted to hear, but needing to say it anyway. “You would have done the same.”

Their grip on him tightened, but there was no way to deny this, so they just lied in silence for awhile, listening to each other breathe. With Spock and Jim curled around each side of him, their calming presence lulling him towards sleep, Leonard felt like he was floating in a cocoon of warmth, and he never wanted this moment to end –

“Leonard, you must listen to us.” Spock’s voice was a whisper against his neck, lips brushing gently against the skin there. “If I give my life to save yours, I am entitled to that decision. As your commanding officer –”

Anger flared hotly along his skin, and Leonard dug his nails into Spock’s arm, cutting him off. “And as your lover, I get to make the same decision, so don’t pull that rank bullshit on me –”

“Bones, please.” Jim’s voice was laced with exhaustion, and his breath drifted across Leonard’s skin, face resting against his shoulder. “Spock, you too. Now’s not the time.”

Spock made a reluctant sound of agreement, and Leonard exhaled slowly, trying to calm himself down. “Goddamn you both,” he muttered, hearing the tightness in his voice, as he struggled to keep his composure. “I have spent my entire life searching for something like this, and I couldn’t live without you – don’t you understand that?”

“Perhaps the sentiment goes both ways, doctor.”

Spock’s voice was perfectly neutral, but Leonard could feel that Vulcan heart racing, and he knew this was the greatest declaration of love Spock had ever managed to give. Jim raised his head from Leonard’s shoulder, the look in his eyes a silent agreement with Spock, and something inside Leonard seemed to twist in on itself, remembering the many times they had been mere seconds away from dying.

“This stupid job,” he choked out, hearing the shake in his voice, “is going to get us killed, just when I've found something to live for. I want to get the fuck out of space, buy a little place in the country, and spend the rest of my life staring at the stars, knowing that I’m never going back.”

Although Spock and Jim loved being in space, Leonard had never had the same fascination, and he just wanted the two people he loved to be safe. An unexpected flicker of longing seemed to twist through Jim’s eyes, and Spock’s fingers tightened against Leonard’s arms, silently indicating that he wanted the same thing. 

“A few more years,” Jim was whispering, pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of Leonard’s mouth, sending a tremor through his exhausted body. “Then you can pick whatever house you want for us, I promise.”

Leonard knew Jim had no way to guarantee such a promise, but he nodded anyway, willing to pretend for awhile. Spock pressed a kiss against the back of his neck, then raised one hand to slide it along the edge of Jim’s face, resting the other against Leonard's arm, pulling them all into a connected web of sensation.

“For now, doctor, it would be best to sleep. We will be here.”

Leonard stared at Jim for a moment longer, then closed his eyes and tried to imagine the three of them living together, studying the stars from the safety of their back porch. The memory of his body’s destruction was still curling through his mind, but their nearness was making it harder for the pain to come back.

“Thank you.”

His voice was a low whisper, and Spock began rubbing his fingers along Leonard’s wrists, trying to soothe away non-existent manacle marks. Utterly exhausted, the warmth of two bodies curled around him like a blanket, Leonard clamped down on his tears and let their silent comfort slide along his skin, hoping their love would be enough to chase away the nightmares.


End file.
